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In 1878, Garófalo first introduced the concept
of “temibilitá,” now known as dangerousness, to
indicate constant propensity to violent action and the expectation
that it will continue into the future. Since then, much has been
written about whether governments have the right to impose penal
sanctions for yet-to-be-committed criminal acts. Based on the doctrine
of social defence, the state can ordinarily move to declare an individual
dangerous and worthy of special security dispositions, once culpability
has been established, and given either a past punctuated by similar
actions or an act characterized by sadistic and unspeakable evil.
This is a 2-stage process: the first is a simple (if any criminal
investigation can ever be so) legal operation to prove authorship
and culpability. Here, the players are the usually expected ones
in criminal proceedings—the accused, the victim(s), the witnesses,
the police, the lawyers, the prosecutors and the judges. The second
stage, however, requires a complicated operation and an ensemble
of extra players. These are usually experts at predicting and managing
the risk the offender poses and will supposedly continue to pose
to society. The operative words at this stage are “experts,”
because they hail from areas of expertise outside criminology or
law, and “supposedly,” because no matter what their knowledge,
a claim to predict is fundamental to their involvement. In this
respect, no amount of genetic-biological research, clinical acumen,
or statistical-probabilistic modelling could or will provide 100%
certainty that what the experts predict will in fact ever occur.
Predicting and managing risk is what this book is about. The editors’
excellent prologue presents a scholarly overview of the knowledge
in the area. This is followed by 3 chapters on the basic issues
of violence research: the biology of violence and the observation
of violent behaviour and development of violent predispositions
in the child. The rest of the book discusses specific issues, including
violence pertaining to special populations or situations and violence
prediction and management. These chapters deal with violence and
mental disorders, violence and substance abuse, violence in family
situations, and violence in regard to stalking and criminal harassment.
Unfortunately, the book does not include a chapter on violence at
the workplace—a major oversight given the multiple reports
of violent behaviour, including shootings by disgruntled employees.
This meticulously edited and attractively bound book presents an
up-to-date review of dangerousness and its assessment. The editors
have assembled an impressive roster of collaborators to write the
specific chapters. Many of them are well-known and first-kind researchers
in their specific fields. Their excellent contributions and the
presentation of the latest research findings in some chapters ensure
the even quality of the book and make it extremely instructive.
On the other hand, as the subtitle suggests, this is a book about
the empirical contributions to the subject. It celebrates the empiricists,
and as such, it presents an unbalanced and uncritical view of the
science of divining dangerousness. Where does predicting and assessing
dangerousness fit in the social universe? What are the legal implications
of the doctrine of social defence that empowers governments to impose
preventative detention? What ethical obligations flow to practitioners
of the art, whose pronouncements will have dire outcomes for the
freedom and sometimes the very lives of offenders? These questions
are not explored. It appears that the editors have succumbed to
a frenzy of knowledge and forgotten that theory drives practice—that
social, legal, and ethical considerations should inform the debate
and the use of empirical findings and that they ground whatever
science has been amassed on the subject. Indeed, and sadly, this
book has been written in a theoretical vacuum.
All in all, however, it contributes an empirical point of view
to the burgeoning literature on these issues. It compiles the extant
knowledge in the area and should be read by psychiatrists and mental
health specialists engaged in predicting and managing violent behaviours.
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